Student awarded $245k Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship

Many congratulations to MEng student Luka Mustafa who has received a prestigious Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship for development of his wireless optical system KORUZA. The Fellowship provides full time funding and a budget of $245,000 to make KORUZA a fully open-source open-hardware project and enable as many people around the world to start using it.

Internet connectivity in urban areas is reliant on fibre or wifi. Where neither of these are viable, there are few other options available. Luka's work could offer a viable low-cost alternative in these environments. Luka is developing Koruza, a 3D printable wireless optical system for connecting buildings up to 100m apart with internet access, as a viable low-cost alternative to fiber in urban environments. The objective is to empower individuals to take last-mile connectivity in their own hands and mitigate network bottlenecks through organic growth of wireless optical networks.

The Shuttleworth Foundation said:

"We support Luka because we are interested in the process of taking off the shelf hardware, 3D printing some open components and making something new, useful and innovative. This is not new technology, it has just been either impossible to access or too expensive for the general end user to buy to date."

This is not new technology, but it is a novel application of it. Luka is combining telecommunications and open hardware, to customise this solution for this market. He is also contributing to the broader open hardware movement by supporting the development of open documentation processes and the concept of useful source.

Luka said:

"At this opportunity I would really like to thank Benn Thomsen for the outstanding supervision and excellent advice as this all would not otherwise be possible."

About Luka

Luka Mustafa is a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow and working full-time on KORUZA development, as well as finishing his masters MEng Electronic Engineering with Communications Engineering at University College London (UCL). He is actively involved in wlan slovenija community wireless network and the construction, deployment and management of national and international wireless backbones. He actively pursues the development of new and efficient systems by re-purposing mass-produced components and equipment and contributes to several open-hardware and electronics projects worldwide, with intern experience from sound-system to particle accelerator control systems.